- Customer Discovery - Has the team interviewed a representative number of potential customers for the technology and clearly communicated what they learned?
The Synsketch is aimed to help university students who participate in IGEM competition or those who have the basic knowledge about synthetic biology and hope to design a genetic circuit within minutes. In order to understand the needs and problems of the target customers, SKLBC-GDSYZX team held a science festival in Guangdong Experimental High School and had a meet-up session with the other four teams from Sunyatsen University and South China University of Technology. During meet-up session, our team introduces the project and listens to other teams’ projects and their problems during the experiment process. Most importantly, our team interviewed a student from South China University of Technology and discussed the difficulties they had during preparation for iGEM competition. It was obvious that experiment teams and software teams should establish a close relationship and that our project will help experiment teams solve some current problems and satisfy their needs.
- Based on their interviews, does the team have a clear hypothesis describing their customers’ needs?
According to the interviewees, there are three learning periods: basic teaching which requires a time-saving tool that is easy to learn and to use, learning engine that needs a good interaction between users and the software so as to offer more chances to explore potential possibility of the work, and automatic learning in great request of a model to reach a well-spread standardization. Although some of the current graphic-design tools such as Photoshop are efficient, they do not have a certain standard, therefore leading to a confusing visual effect for both judges and iGEM learners to go through the various genetic circuits in different projects. And other tools are too difficult to learn. The student interviewee complained that her team had to incorporate several students major in design and computer science to help them deal with the design of the genetic circuits and that even those professional students had to spend about a month to fully master the use of some graphic-design tools like Adobe Illustrator. During the interviews, the student said that due to the lack of time, method and good interaction, iGEMers are often in great need of a standardized, interactive, systematic synthetic biology learning software.
- Does the team present a convincing case that their product meets the customers’ needs?
Based on the interviews, our team has learned that there are three periods during learning: the first is basic teaching, which requires a certain amount of time. With Synsketch, users don’t need to start from lines when they want to design the genetic circuits for experiment. Just chose the design elements they want and then drag it to a suitable place, so that a standardized picture is completed. Also, if users make a mistake, not like other tools as Photoshop, Synsketch is available for them to revise their genetic circuits both quickly and accurately. And Synsketch is easy to learn and it takes only a time to make a cup of coffee to get the mastery of it, therefore saving lots of time in the basic teaching period.
The second period, learning engine period, calls for a good interaction. Users can easily interact with Synsketch by applying the software to learn more about synthetic biology parts involved in the experiment. And Synskecth also establishes a good connection within the whole iGEM community. As user finishes his genetic circuit online, a QR code is generated and he can share it to his friends by scanning the QR code. And he can also store the diagrams in his wechat ID and share them through wechat, one of the most pervasive social tools in China with more than 549million users per month. User can still upload the data to the website, a cloud base. Through the cloud data base, IGEMers are also able to communicate with each other.
As the third period, automatic learning requires a tool to enable standardization. Looking through the genetic circuits of previous projects, we find that they are not uniform: some are too complex, some are too simple, and some are incomplete...However, Synsketch is a standardized tool that helps iGEMers design draw clear and unified genetic circuits for experiment. For the future aspect, if every iGEM team can use Synsketch to design genetic circuits, we will get a unified visual effect and can understand all the experimental principle easily.
- Has the team demonstrated a minimum viable (MVP) product and had customers to commit (LOI, etc.) to purchasing it / using it?
As for a minimum viable product, our team chooses to first implement online advertising, which almost costs no extra spending at all since the website has already completed and accumulated a certain amount of users. For the future aspect, we are planning to arrange more offline activities such as the lectures or teaching session in high schools and universities, therefore expanding the public influence and inspiring more public interest about synthetic biology. And such activities will also be economic since our team has already established a close cooperation with many schools such as Guangdong Experimental High School and Sunyatsen University.
For the sponsors, our teams attracts the attention of many education agencies to invest because the user base for Synsketch is mainly students who have an interest in synthetic biology and most of them hope to carry on further study abroad. So up till now, we have received 40000RMB from EIC and 15000RMB from APP, both education agencies that are attracted by the potential user base. And our goal is to get 200,000RMB investment in the future.
And many iGEM teams have already applied to Synsketch with their genetic circuits. With the cooperation of SKLBC-China team, many wechat users have signed in as the user of our website and stored completed genetic circuits in their personal account.
- Does the team have a viable and understood business model/value proposition to take their company to market?
Our team has already come up with a viable and understandable business model—a circle among ourselves, biology learners and the sponsors.
Firstly, the team can use the project and some online advertisement to attract investment and use the investment to arrange offline activities to inspire interest of synthetic biology among the public, which is of great educational and scientific significance. We also collaborate with the founder of one-kilogram-box and spend 40% of the investment on the product. So far, we have just delivered 550 boxes to many high schools and universities, helping more students to learn about iGEM and synthetic biology. In the business circle, our team plays a role as the connecting part between customers and sponsors.
Secondly, the sponsors will also benefit in the business model for they can attract more customers on the online advertisements and get their potential customers during the offline activities. Since a big proportion of the users of Synsketch are students who may have the plan to study abroad, most of the sponsors are education agencies and they can get their customers from those who often view the website. And they can also get more potential customers during some lectures and other public activities for biology learners.
Thirdly, the public will also take full advantage in the circle. They can get access to a more convenient standardized software for genetic circuits and can also learn more about synthetic biology through offline activities.
As mentioned above, there is a virtuous circle with lots of benefits for every part of the circle. And since every part can benefit from the business model, it will carry on and expand to a larger and larger range and pose more and more important influence to the whole iGEM community and even the whole society.
